Smith's heartfelt songs take on a more melancholic hue. [Jul 2012, p.70]

The Tarnished Gold, mature, with a revelatory appreciation for the simple life, might prove to be the true spiritual heir to their auspicious 2000 debut. [Jul 2012, p.81]

Copper Blue combined Hüsker Dü's passionate intensity with a new, steely pop resolve.

The album is filled with fascinating earworms. [Jun 2012,m p.69]

Her despondency is balanced with levity elsewhere. [Jul 2012, p.74]

It doesn't always Gel. But a horn heavy take on the Stooges' "Dirt" is satisfyingly ballsy. [Jul 2012, p.70]

It's all very becalming, but not quite the nu-psychedelic staging post that we were hoping for. [Jul 2012, p.79]

This more captivating follow-up, mixing originals and inspired covers, fuses sultry blues and deep jazz with Trucks' training in Indian classical music to create an alchemical hybrid. [Jul 2012, p.84]

It's an intriguing juxtaposition of the crunchy and the smooth. [May 2012, p.75]

Falling Off The Sky is the rare comeback effort worthy of its legacy. [Jun 2012, p.82]

Perfectly pleasant, but a little bloodless. [Jun 2012, p.80]

Reeling Skullways is a paean to the previous step on techno's evolutionary ladder: the analogue acid sounds of Detroit, Chicago, and Manchester. [Jul 2012, p.69]

Best blues album of the year so far. [Jul 2012, p.69]

The results are charming, melancholy and achingly beautiful. [Jul 2012, p.84]

He may come to rue the day he traded his trusty ukulele for a cheapo drum machine that makes his attempts at pop-funk sound more gauche than his nifty songcraft deserves. [Jul 2012, p.77]

Another 21 songs of baffling titles, ingenuous melodies and charming amateurism. [Jul 2012, p.73]

Gelb's masterstroke is the inclusion of Brian Lopez, Gabriel Sullivan and Jon Villa, whose flourishes of Tex-Mex and cumbia accentuate Tuscon's feel of pan-cultural enchantment. [Jul 2012, p.70]

The occasional sense of a well-won formula being diligently followed is counter-balanced by the committed performances and a sufficiency of hooks. [Jul 2012, p.77]

The best electro-pop debut since La Roux. [Jun 2012, p.80]

There's ample sustenance for the heart as well as the head. [Jul 2012, p.68]

With this one weighted heavily toward the dance floor, there's no shortage of sublime moments. [Jul 2012, p.74]

The results are startling, setting Womacks's distinctive voice against stark electro backings and thunderous beats. [Jul 2012, p.75]

Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson has upped his skill factors on this. [Jul 3012, p.84]

Seldom has retro sounded so pleasingly stubborn. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Its initial oddness now just sounds like a ramshackle tryout for what was to follow. [Jun 2012, p.91]

Producer Thomas Bartlett enlists the likes of Rob Moose and Brett Devendorf to add sharp edges to the Australian's singer's dreaminess. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Miller can't help occasional returns to his powerpop protocol. [Jul 2012, p.77]

The real standouts are "Daddy's Little Girl," in which M Ward puts her inside the head of Frank Sinatra, and the Jack Pendarvis-Andrew Bird collaboration "We Can't Have Have Things."

Burton's glassy lead lines and Corea's jerky modalism lend an unusual air to classics by Tadd Dameron. [Jul 2012, p.70]

It seems pretty much like business as usual. [Jul 2012, p.63]

Infectious stuff, and 30 years on from the first Pastels single, there is still no escaping indie's fey power. [Jul 2012, p.67]

The Absence isn't just an experiment in various styles. The songs are terrific. too. [Jul 2012, p.73]

Album number five is the sound of the law of diminishing returns finally kicking in. [Jul 2012, p.73]

At her best, and across much of Banga, Patti Smith still dramatises the distance between South Jersey and the San Francisco basilica, the street tussle between the poet and the factory girl, the devotion of the mongrels of faith for the betrayers of salvation. [Jul 2012, p.78]

Not quite criminal, but close. [Jul 2012, p.84]

The follow-up, recorded in a fully equipped studio with backing band, retains an acoustic ethic, but is more richly textured. [Jul 2012, p.84]

[Trust] hit upon a nifty formula that veers between mid-80s Depeche Mode and fruity Eurodisco. [Jul 2012, p.84]

Watson is a master of both dynamics and arrangements, his songs ebbing and flowing with a restrained grace and striking sensitivity. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Waterhouse's big lunged holler is efficiently exciting, but his debut album isn't so much -- 12 songs, but 12 variants on the same song. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Chris Spencer's vocals complete the darkly uncompromising picture, oozing a disgust and despair that's as much personal as socio-political. [Jul 2012, p.85]

The Walkmen are weathering the iPhone age with panache. [Jul 2012, p.85]

The group's commitment and almost minimalistic sense of repetition resulting in a metal longplayer of unrivaled scope. [Jul 2012, p.96]

A bewitching record. [Jul 2012, p.82]

Shapeshifter features mostly stockpiled instrumental pieces characteristically driven by Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms. [Jul 2012, p.82]

You get less of a sense of young maidens skipping round the maypole than two battle-scarred musicians adapting to life on the road. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Feldwick is clearly a livewire talent adept at mashing up everything from vintage Sega sample to the arthouse end of dubstep. [Jul 2012, p.83]

Despite the odd longueurs, Boys Don't Cry is a heartfelt, beguiling match of singer and song. [Jul 2012, p.80]

Their combination of riff and sneering recalling at times the strut of Raw Power Stooges. [Jul 2012, p.79]

These are solidly structured ditties with few surprises. [Jul 2012, p.79]

A fair amount of cosmic fannying involved, but this is framed by some cracking songwriting. [Jul 2012, p.79]

The songs themselves are exquisite. [Jul 2012, p.77]

The Don Was-produced album proceeds at an unhurried pace, featuring Jackson Browne-like confessionals and Young-style, harmonica-accented shuffles. [Jul 2012, p.77]

Hit singles are in short supply, but WIXIW has an atmospheric, immersive quality that puts one in mind of Kid A's soporific drift. [Jul 2012, p.77]

At times all this vim can slip into noise. [Jul 2012, p.74]

Flats look to be stranded between hipster grunge and true hardcore. [Jul 2012, p.71]

A terrific package. [Jul 2012, p.71]

At times you're left craving some of the eerie minimalism of El-P's classical Cannibal Ox Productions. [Jul 2012, p.71]

For much of Majenta he seems content to lie back and think of Prince. [Jul 2012, p.71]

Ruthless schmaltz is, predictably, the order of the day. [Jul 2012, p.69]

It might just be the best record of this year, and the best of Rowland's career. [Jul 2012, p.66]

Jeffreys' serves up a vibrant stew of musical styles while taking the pulse of his beloved New York. [Jun 2012, p.74]

The disguises are so convincingly worn that which one is the "real" Joshua James matters not one whit. [Jun 2012, p.74]

Forever so takes in spectral balladry, rousing stompathons and incursions into jazz and olde English madrigals, to consistently bewitching effect. [Jun 2012, p.74]

Overall it's a slow-burn success. [Jun 2012, p.74]

It may not be of the caliber of Metal Box, but it finds its maker firmly in 2012, not 1979, and with plenty still to grouse about. [Jun 2012, p.67]

Rather than embracing the weight of myth and geography it simply rises above it, majestic yet frustratingly aloof. [Jun 2012, p.77]

Pastoral and hallucinatory is how Sioux plays it here. [Jun 2012, p.83]

Loveless holds it own as one of the great rock albums, period. [Jun 2012, p.90]

These cuts are glorious on their own merits. [Jun 2012, p.92]

Funny, and--beneath the psych flourishes--quietly devastating. [Jun 2012, p.93]

The rest of the album never reaches such heights [of The Big E], but there are enough noisy high-points, such as "Never Get Tired" and "Sit Tight," to make Laughing Party a significant step up. [Jul 2012, p.74]

This is a delightful and charming addition to the original body of George's work, which highlights the quality of his songwriting and presents the material in a fresh light.

Ya Know cuts deep, with the best singing and wiliest melodies of his career. [Jun 2012, p.96]

Separated from its era and the defensiveness which spawned it, Ram sounds great. [Jun 2012, p.96]

The two hours and four tracks of Love In Detroit capture the mood and excitement of a Fela show during this second phase of his career. [Jun 2012, p.93]

This is full of melodies that feel effortless and instantly classic. [Jun 2012, p.83]

There's a heightened atmosphere and sense of scale throughout. [Jun 2012, p.84]

The LP draws on old-style American folk but expertly remodels it for a contemporary audience. [Jun 2012, p.70]

While some of these missiles find their target, he is back with less of a bang than he might have hoped. [Jun 2012, p.70]

Mastodon idiocy it may be, but on "Honey From A Knife" and "For The Animals" at least, the fire in their eyes keeps them alive, [Jun 2012, p.71]

It doesn't always work, but when it does, it suggests a great artist finding new and surer ground. [Jun 2012, p.77]

The ingrained instinct for grandiosity can grate, but Gahan has never sounded better, his voice bringing power, purpose and unity to a project that's previously delivered less than thew sum of its parts. [Jun 2012, p.83]

It is the sound of a sweet soul contemplating deliverance; as mellow and fierce and fearful as that.

It could do with some Toe Ze-style danger, and it's a bit coffeetable--but a sun-dappled, rum-stocked coffee table to be fair. [May 2012, p.69]

Love Is The Plan sits just fine alongside his other records. [May 2012, p.67]

These make an effective pairing. [May 2012, p.72]

This is a beautifully executed love letter to the eternal pop rush. [Jun 2012, p.82]

Mostly, it's funky pop, half-deconstructed and relentlessly optimistic. [Jun 2012, p.71

Heroes may be elegiac, but it's as spirited as it is poignant. [Jun 2012, p.70]

He drifts boringly into pure pastiche on "Crystal Caverns 1991," but what keeps the rest fresh is the pace. [Jun 2012, p.77]

Like all luxury goods, there is a hint of the predictable. [Jun 2012, p.83]

It's hard to dispute that Ufabulum find him in the form of his life. [Jun 2012, p.84]

SBP always made a virtue of their limitations, but the results of their unshackling from penury are spectacular. [Jun 2012, p.84]

A Joyful Noise strikes a healthy balance between tears-on-the-dancefloor hi-NRG and Gossip's bluesy swagger. [Jun 2012, p.73]

Manson can still whip up an appealingly vengeful turn of phrase, but they retain a tendency to sound stiff. [Jun 2012, p.73]

Musically, it's business as usual as they follow up their 2010 debut with more indie pop infused with the melodrama of The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las. [Jun 2012, p.69]

They have crafted an album that feels very much like the score for an imaginary film--an avant-garde French film, to be precise, an extended nocturne encompassing romance and its aftermath, the inexorable passage of time, and the preciousness of the fleeting moment. [Jun 2012, p.81]

Black Is Beautiful is their strongest yet, so cognitively disorienting it's hard to figure out what they're up to. [Jun 2012, p.69]